Artiste: Jennifer Rush
Nationality: American
Album: Out of My Hands
Year: 1995
Label: EMI
Genre: Pop
Tracks:
Tears in the rain
Out of my hands
In the arms of love
Fortress
Shocked
Who wants to live forever
Untouchable
Only Heaven knows
Crazy 'bout you
Cry, baby
Nights in white satin
Chronological position:Seventh album
Rank: Apprentice
Comments: When I first heard “The Power of Love” I wrote Jennifer Rush off as another one-hit wonder, but something made me buy the album
Heart Over Mind and man was I impressed! Not a duff track and some really excellent ones. I thought, here may be a proper star in the making. So I bought her other albums, listened to them but somehow was never quite as impressed as I had been by that first listen to her material. I haven't heard much from her in the last few years – wasn't even sure if she was still alive; you never can be sure these days – but it seems she's still churning out the albums and having the odd hit. So I decided to check this one out.
I'm a shade disappointed to find so many covers on it – Robin Beck's “Tears in the rain” is beautiful, and an excellent opener, and her version of Queen's “Who wants to live forever” (one of my favourite Queen songs) with Brian May on guitar and vox is decent but not a patch on the original (don't like the ending) – but then you have some standard disco/synthpop dross like the title track and I'm beginning to think that
HOM was her best, or at least most mature album, the one I would venture to describe as rock, which may be why I was so let down by the other albums I heard from her. Still, as it goes on it seems that title track might be the exception and the rest is proving pretty solid if not mindblowing. Her version of the Moody Blues' classic “Nights in white satin” is a decent closer.
Intention: I'll probably drop the odd album in now and then, in the hope of her ever recording a worthy successor to
Heart Over Mind. This is quite close, but it ain't it.
